Incessant Rambling

I’ve been meaning to get a new design up on this site for quite some time. I really dug the Hemingway theme, but I decided that since I’m a designer, I should probably come up with my own thing.

So, I’m playing this weekend. I may stick with it. I might not. You’ll probably see a lot of broken things, but I’m kinda doing this in real time, so bear with me.

Please.

Update: I know there are bugs in IE. They’ll get taken care of eventually.

Update #2: So I didn’t play as much as I had planned. It looks like things are going to stay this way for a while though. My current to-do list now includes tweaking the layout a bit, filling out the missing content, adding the archive pages, and expanding the footer. Well, that and actually start writing interesting things here. I have some top secret features that I’ve been working on for a while that I’ll reveal as they are completed.

Expect something in-depth weekly, with smaller posts throughout the week. I’ll hopefully be filling up the “Found Objects” section more frequently as well, as my current source for interesting links, Andy Rutledge’s Design View, has (very) sadly gone offline for the forseeable future.

I know most of you think that since this website is so popular, that it came under attach yesterday, but the LA power outages took down my web host. Why don’t these people have backup power. There were a very large number of websites that I regularly visit down yesterday, for reasons that I can only assume are related to the power outages.

Things are getting back to normal. This self-employment thing is awesome if you can get your clients to pay. It’s such a difference going from consistent, salary-based income to invoice and wait.

I have so much going on and therefore so much to say, but I think I’ll keep this short. I’m still trying to figure out what solarfrog.com is really going to be. I know it will be more than a blog, but I’m still not entirely sure what exactly I want to say with it. Personal? Who cares about my personal ramblings? Op-Ed? Maybe, but I don’t think I’m that in tune with my words that I could have anything worth reading. Technical? Easy, but I’m sure you can find many smarter people than I out there. I’ll try to keep something current going and we’ll just see how it evolves.

Stay tuned. New ideas coming every day.

Yes, it has been way too long since this process started. Obviously, Kubrik is starting to really bore some people. So, we’ll move into the next phase of our live redesign. This time, it’s building the skeleton.

Information Architecture

The IA of solarfrog.com will be relatively simple, as are most personal sites. The main focus will be on the blog/article content. In addition to the articles, the user will have access to the usual information, about, contact, portfolio, etc.

Here’s how I expect it to break down:

• Home Page
  • Latest Article
  • Colophon
  • Last N articles (offset by 1)
  • Search (live search)
  • Categories
  • Links (external)
  • Links to my network of sites
  • Latest photos in Flickr
  • Random selections from my portfolio
• About
• Portfolio
• Contact

Wireframing

A pretty standard approach was taken to layout that I hope will be differentiated once color starts to be thrown about. It started with a typical four-column grid sectioned by content area. Here’s a sample of what I’m talking aboot (I’ve been speaking Canadian when saying ‘about’ or ‘out’ lately).

I take the solid block approach to wireframing because it helps me to better visualize the effect of each content area on those around it. The design is intended for 1024 x 768 for no solid reason whatsoever, except that it is time to move on. C’mon people, join me in the revolution.

Branding

I didn’t have time to get to branding this time around. Next time, though.

I’ve always had a really hard time getting my personal site to a place where it needed to be. Here I am at version 7 (at least) and none of the first 6 was ever complete. I figure, the best way to do it is to treat myself as a client and see how the process works. I developed my own methodology around 2000 that has worked very well, with minimal modifications in the last five years. The most noticeable difference is in the requirements gathering phase (this one) where I’ve clarified, thanks to Keith, the difference of Business, Organizational and User Goals. We’ll explore those this time, and move into brand &ampl identity in the following posts.

Organizational Goals

Organizational Goals are probably the most predominant for a personal website. While I have some business goals, and obviously some user goals, I have some finite goals from an organizational / personal perspective that will make or break this site.

• Give me an outlet for self-publishing articles about topics of interest to me.
• Allow for publishing of a personal portfolio of various projects completed for potential employers, showing off.
• Consolidate various aspects of my life on the web (Flickr, bloglines, etc).
• Simple informal blog (as opposed to articles) for daily-life type stuff.

Business Goals

For my personal site, I don’t have a great deal as far as business goals go, but it would be nice to see something come of the hard work I plan to finally put into this project. As the definition of Business Goals are those that “affect the bottom line” I see them as more than financial. My bottom line as a blogger / website owner is not necessarily to make money from my personal site (thought it would be nice), but to simply have the satisfaction that what I do makes a difference.

Therefore, I’ve developed the following as business goals for this site:

• Allow for a variety of income sources (advertising, donations, etc)
• Provide for user feedback and suggestions (comments, contact forms, suggestion box)

User Goals

User goals are pretty obvious, but I wish to document them here so that I can checkpoint my success / failure at meeting my goals.

• Read my indepent thoughts through informal daily blog.
• Learn and communicate on broader topics through formal self-published articles.
• Communicate with me / other readers via comments and other feedback sources.
• Find new things via linkroll and other things of interest I may post

Conclusion

That’s a good start, I think. It at leasts gets my thoughts on the table and gives me somewhere to work from. As an informal project, pretending to be formal, I think we’ll make some pretty rapid progress having this type of information documented

Next up, Information Architecture, Wireframing and Branding.

(more…)

I don’t get how other bloggers out there come up with so much interesting content. imagine its just that I don’t have the time to really sit down and write out a complete thought, much less make it cohesive enough for anyone but myself to understand. Is it really that hard?

My Bloglines roll is up to 79 feeds (and that’s not nearly all that I really read). At least half post at least once a day.

I guess I just don’t have that much to say. Stay tuned. Maybe.

It’s pretty simple, really. Incessant Rambling is just as it sounds. It is my personal soapbox, the place where I can ramble on about anything and everything on my mind.

There are other blogs out there that have consolidated their topics into something more specific to their interests, web design, css, music, their dating life. I can’t really do that. I’m interested in so many different things and constantly want to learn new things, that today I may discuss the latest Blackberry app I’ve developed and tomorrow I may write about the microphone placement I used when setting up for the children’s musical at Church. Who knows what you’ll get? I hope that keeps you interested.